


mixtape for my mistakes

by tangentiallly



Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
Genre: Bertrand-centric, Character Study, Gen, Pre-Canon, kit also gets a cameo, mentions of jacques/bertrand and bertrand/ernest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2020-05-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:15:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24143455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tangentiallly/pseuds/tangentiallly
Summary: Kit had already accused him of always falling for people who believed in what they were doing was right, or needed. If he was being honest, she probably wasn’t that wrong. He just thought it was incredibly rich coming from her.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10





	mixtape for my mistakes

**Author's Note:**

> disclaimer: i don't own asoue

Sometimes he thought that one of these days he would like to see Jacques and Ernest have a serious argument about things. By “like to see”, he really meant, preferably from a safe distance just in case things got too heated, and ideally on a recorded tape so he wouldn’t have to deal with it real time.

After all, with his conflict-adverse tendencies, and how he tended to get nervous when hearing people fight, he knew he would just try to break up the argument by saying a few diplomatic words and trying to distract everyone, to change the subject.

Nevertheless, out of - perhaps academic curiosity, perhaps a desire to try to understand how he really felt about the sides himself - he really did want to see them have a serious debate about this.

Because Bertrand had already listened to Jacques’s various arguments about VFD ideals, about how they were doing the right thing, how the methods the other side was taking were too drastic and horrible and how the volunteers must battle them. He’d heard the justifications such as getting permissions first, down to Jacques citing his own experience as an example.

Jacques sounded like he genuinely believed what he was saying, wholeheartedly and unwaveringly. Or at least, he’d convinced himself that he believed that. Bertrand wasn’t sure how much of a difference was there between those two, still, even if it was just a small, subtle one, it felt worthy of distinction in his mind.

Jacques was articulate, and argued his points in a logical manner that Bertrand considered would be easy to believe in, had he not heard equally articulate arguments arguing the contrary. (And had he not already seen enough that could cause his own uncertainties about VFD.)

The thing was, they were all trained to be articulate, so how much did articulate arguments matter, anyway?

And speaking of counterarguments - 

Ernest’s professional, ambiguous mask slid away for a moment as the corner of his mouth pulled up into a lazily flirtatious smile and he nodded in Bertrand’s direction from behind the front desk. Bertrand smiled back, a more measured one than Ernest’s, and focused on heading down to the library again. Dewey wasn’t there, presumably Beatrice had talked him into wearing a disguise to explore the city.

His mind went back to Ernest again. Ernest, when they were alone, had more than once tried to get him to see the firestarters’ side of things. His arguments, no less eloquent than Jacques’s, featured heavily the flaws of VFD, so detailedly listed that Bertrand suspected like it was a list that was passed down from experienced firestarters to the newer ones.

And while Bertrand didn’t exactly agree, and he certainly thought quite a few things were exaggerations, it troubled him that he could sort of see where those arguments came from. He didn’t want to even consider those had a point at first - he had thought he’d just be humoring Ernest a bit by listening, or as a courtesy. He hadn’t wanted to actually consider or analyze them at ll, at first.

And of course Bertrand had wondered if maybe he found some points - while not entirely what he considered correct, did have some sense behind them, simply because he found Ernest attractive. It wasn’t that out of the bounds of reality. Objectively, Ernest was fairly attractive.

_ So is Jacques _ , a voice within him said. That didn’t really help. He would like to think he found Jacques’ points logical because they were logical points, not because it was Jacques voicing those points.

He tried to reason all those points from different sides in his mind, because if they were both logical sounding points, surely when put together side by side he could figure out how exactly it didn’t match up.

Except they didn’t seem to be addressing the same points, not really. Jacques focused on the virtues of the organization and avoided the shadier parts by insisting those were all for some greater ideal, while Ernest focused solely on those points Jacques avoided and insisting that the firestarters’ measures were necessary evil for taking down VFD, and dodging the questions about how necessary were some of those measures by saying not all firestarters did that.

When heard separately, they both made a lot of sense. They both articulated their points well. ( _ Perhaps that was why they had never argued with each other _ , a voice inside him said.  _ Because it’d be harder to avoid certain points by the other. _ )

Still, they were all trained to be articulate. Being articulate wasn’t a guarantee of being right.

He wasn’t sure why he felt drawn to both of them, although Kit had already accused him of always falling for people who believed in what they were doing was right, or needed. Or at least act very convincingly in believing in that, anyway. She said he always got drawn to those with that kind of confidence or belief, even if he didn’t completely believe in the same things.

And if he was being honest, she probably wasn’t that wrong. He just thought it was incredibly rich coming from her, considering her own history with Ellington Feint. He knew Kit disagreed with Ellington’s beliefs in things, especially regarding her father and her opinion on VFD, but she’d fallen in love with Miss Feint nonetheless. 

Personally, he suspected it was because Kit didn’t always believe in what she was doing, didn’t believe the ideals were really so pure and good and could justify all things. She did things because the alternative seemed to suck even more, because that seemed like a practical choice. That didn’t mean she believed so wholeheartedly, nor did she try to convince herself or others anymore that those ideals were still so perfect.

But that’s why he suspected she liked people who believed in things, why she couldn’t be helped to be drawn to their confidence in their beliefs - or at least, very real looking confidence regardless how much of it was faked. It was partly wanting to be convinced by them, and partly skeptical of how much they really believed. The kind of skepticalness that turned into a fascination that might not be the healthiest, but fascination regardless.

The unpleasant thing about drawing such conclusions on Kit was he was almost forced to consider if he was just projecting his own feelings onto her. If his suspicions on her thoughts were merely a reflection of why he felt drawn to people like Jacques or Ernest.

He would rather not consider that.

Probably.

But still, he found himself circling back to thinking about how they both seemed to believe in what they chose. Or at least, how they pretended to believe, anyway. He couldn’t rule out the possibility, and it made them feel - realer, in a way. Like a secret side he wanted to unravel slowly.

He frowned to himself, and then decided to put on some of Dewey’s music collection to clear his mind. 

**Author's Note:**

> [come say hi on tumblr](https://beatricebidelaire.tumblr.com)


End file.
